Cak-wheel



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UNITED sTATEs PATENT OEEIOE.

SOLOMON P. SMITH, OF TROY, NEWv YORK.

CAR-WHEEL.

Speccaton forming part of Letters Patent No. 28,512, dated May 29, 1860;Reissued February 13, 1872, Nos. 4,760 and 4,761.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, SOLOMON P. SMITH, of the cit of Troy, in the countyof Rensselaer and State of New York, formerly of the village ofCrescent, in the county of Saratoga, in the aforesaid State, haveinvented certain new and useful improvements in the construction of suchconpound iron carwheels as have the rim supported or held in place byseparable disks or plates secured together by bolts passing throughperforations therein; and I do hereby declare that the followingcontains a full and exact description of my invention, reference beinghad to the annexed drawings, which make a part of this specification,and in which- Figure 1 is a vertical section of one of my improvedwheels in the plane of its axis; Fig. 2 an elevation of one side of thewheel; Fig. 3 an elevation of one side with the front-plate removed;Fig. 4 a dia-metrical section of the rim; Fig. 5 an edge view of theparts of a compound band-packing that is inserted between the rim andthe parts which support it; Fig. 6 a side view of a clamp-ring forcompressing the band-packing upon the side-plates before they are inserted in the rim; Fig. 7 an edge elevation' of a side-plate with theband-packing and clamp-ring applied thereto; Fig. 8 a diametricalsection showing the plates partly inserted in the rim; and Fig. 9 is asection and Fig. 10 detached projections on a larger scale than theother drawings, of a set of the parts by which the plates and rim aresecured together.

The same letters of reference indicate like parts in all the figures.-

One part of my invention consists in shaping and uniting together therim and plates of a car-wheel as follows, to wit: A is the rim which hasa tread, o, and a flange c, of the ordinary or any suitable form. Therim has, at or near the middle of its inner side, an annular rib, d,that projects inward. The inner surface of the rim on each side of therib d, is cylindrical, or a little flaring, and concentric with thetread.

F is a disk which has a hub, g, at its center, to receive the aXle, and,around its circumference, has a collar or shoulder, 7L, which extendsunder and supportsV one side of the rim to the rib d. I is another diskwhich also has around its circumference a collars or shoulder 7L', whichlikewise extends under and supports the other side of the rim to the ribd. The disk I ts upon the hub g as seen in Fig. l, or it may have a partof the hub formed with it, and be fitted on the axle, or it may fit uponan annular projection or shoulder on the inner side of the disk Fbetween its hub g and shoulder h. The disks, F, I, have continuousflanges, j, j, projecting radially beyond the outer surface of theshoulders It, it', and to, or nearly to, or beyond the inner surface ofthe rim. The rim, A, is made of cast-iron, with a chilled tread, or ofwrought iron, malleable cast iron, or steel; and the disks or plates, F,I, are made of either cast iron, wrought iron, malleable cast iron, orsteel, as may be required, and are either made straight, dished, waved,with spokes, or of any other suitable form.

I insert between the inner surface of the rim and the outer surface ofthe shoulders 71 7L', of the disks, a compressed, compound bandpacking,composed of an outer fiat band, le, of wrought iron, steel, or any othersuitable hard and tough material, and an inner llet, Z, of vulcanizedindia rubber or any other suitable yielding and elastic packingsubstance. Those packings are first put around the shoulders h, L, ofthe disks, with one edge next to the anges y', j', and are forciblycompressed thereon before the rim is or can be put on over the packings.To effect the compression of the packings on the disks I employ apowerful clamp of any suitable form and construction. The clamp mayconsist of a stout iron ring, N, about half as wide as the packing, Z,and having a tangent-screw, o, in it by which the ring may be powerfullycontracted. The clamp is put around the packing on the shoulder, asshown in Fig. 7, and then contracted until the packing is so compressedthat it will not yield materially under the ordinary weight or pressureto which it is to be submitted when the wheel is in use. At this degreeof compression of the packing, the rim can be and is just pressedtightly on over the packings, by means of temporary screw-bolts, e, Fig.8, or by the use of any other suitable pressing contrivance, the clampring being loosened and removed during the latter part of the operation,in case the anges j', prevent it from being slid oif over them` Thefianges j, j', serve to keep the packings Z0 Z'from sliding olf from theshoulders ZL h while being pressed into the rim. The rib Z is madeeither with or without any anges e, e, on its sides; and extends inwardany desired distance beyond the inner edges of the packings Z, Z. Whenthe disks, F, I, and rim, A, are thus shaped and put together with thering-packings 7a Z, they are secured in place by any suitable number andkind vof bolts, p, put through holes in the disks and tightened uponthem.

By the above described construction, which constitutes one part of myinvention, certain important advantages are secured. The rib d, at ornear the middle of the inner surface of y the rim, not only directlystrengthens the rim, but may also furnish bearings for the inner edgesof the shoulders It h so that the anges j j of the disks may be therebyrelieved, tok a greater or less degree, of the lateral strains of sideconcussions against the rim; and by merely having continuous flanges, e,c, on the sides of the rib eZ, just within the collars ZL, ZL', of thedisks, as in Fig. l, the rim will be thereby secured to the Wheel eventhough the rim should become broken transversely into sections while prunning. By powerfully compressing the india rubber or other yieldingand elastic packings, Z, Z, on the shoulders h, 71,', and inserting thepackings when thus compressed, as above described, the packings may beand are left so condensed in the wheel that they will, not onlyyequalize the pressure on the inner surface of the rim, and stopvibrations I in the rim, and'prevent them from extending through thedisks and axle; but will, by their elastic pressure outward, prevent therim from being sprung inward and broken, and the shoulders ZL, 72,',from sinking into and thereby soon wearing out or breaking up'thepackings, under the ordinary heavy concussions to which the wheel issubject in use; By having the packings, Z, Z, inclosed on all sides, asabove described and represented in the annexed drawings, no parts ofthose packings can work out so as to leave the rim loose. By having thesurfaces between which the packings, k, Z, are held compressed, parallelor nearly so to the axis of I the wheel, neither the elastic pressure ofthe packing itself, nor the weight of the car upon the packings, willmaterially tend to force the rim and disks apart sideways. By havingbands, Ze, of iron or some other hard and tough material, around thesoft packings Z, those packings are readily compressed and the rim anddisks easily put together and taken apart without destroying thepackings. By inserting two sets of packings, one on each side of therim, the packings-may be moreV easily compressed and inserted thanif allthe packing was introduced from on one Yside of the rim as has been thecase in car-wheels heretofore made, or proposed, with a acking composedof an innerindia-rubber let and an outer metallic band inserted betweenthe rim and the supporting-disk,

In compound iron car wheels which have the parts held together by aseries of bolts, itis very important that'there should be india-rubberor some other soft and elastic packings, r, between the screw-nuts, u,(or the keys or whatever other equivalent devices may be employed totighten the holding bolts- 27,) and the plate F, (or whatever part ofthe wheel the tightening devices of the holding-,boltsVV may bearYagainst), in order, to prevent the tightening devices of the bolts frombeing soon'worked loose by the jarrings to which the wheel is subject inuse; and, to prevent the bolts from being broken or stretched andweakened by the expansions, or the outward pressure in use, of the.parts held together by the bolts; and to equalize, or distribute toseveral of the holding bolts, the strains which result from sideconcussions of the wheel while running, and which would otherwise besustained by only one or two of the bolts. But

Yalthough I believe that I rst arranged packthe parts held togetherbythe bolts; yet that feature alone does not constitute any part of myinvention herein claimed and is notsufcient to secure the full practicalvalue of `those packings for the purposes above mentioned. For, when theindia-rubber packingsr are left open or exposed around their edges orperipheries, the packings will in such cases, upon running the wheel,soon become squeezed and worked out of place so as to leave too littleelastic pressure on the nuts; and when the india-rubber packings areallowed to come in contact with the hold" ing bolts themselves, thepackings are then so squeezed against and'stuck fast to the Vbolts thatit is then difficult to remove the bolts in repairing the wheel, andthat the bolts cannot be taken out of the wheel without injuring ordestroying the packings in the operation.

The second-part of my invention consists in inclosing the india-rubberor other soft and elastic packing, 7', (when placed between thescrew-nut u or any equivalent tightening-device of a holding-bolt p, andthe plate F or whatever part of the wheelthe tightening device of theholding-bolt bears against,) by means of a combination of a collar orsleeve,t, which 'loosely surrounds the holding-bolt between the packingand the bolt, a washer or follower, s, Yarranged between the packing andthe tightening device of the holding-bolt, and a ring closelysurrounding the packing, or, the sides of a the parts being so formed,and arranged and fitted together, substantially as represented in theannexed drawings, that while the packing is left free to be compressedto any required degree by the holding bolt, no part of the packing canbe squeezed or worked out of place so as to leave too little elasticpressure against the tightening device of the holding bolt, nor bepressed in Contact with the holding bolt so as to interfere with thefree removal of the latter, or render it necessary to injure or destroythe packing, or to in any inanner disturb the packing or any of theparts by which it is inclosed, in taking out the bolt upon re pairingthe wheel.

I do not claim countersinking either the heads, or the tighteningdevices, of the bolts which hold the parts of a compound carwheeltogether; and it is not even essential to any part of my invention thateither the heads, or the tightening devices of the holding bolts shouldbe countersunk. Neither do I herein broadly claim interposingindiarubber or any other elastic packings between the tightening devicesof the holding bolts and the parts of the wheel which are held togetherby the bolts.

What I claim as new, and of my invention in the construction of compoundcarwheels, and desire to secure by Letters Patent 1sl. Making the innerside of the rim A, with a continuous mid-rib, d, and a cylindrical orslightly flaring surface at each side of the rib, and the peripheries ofthe supporting-disks, F, I, with shoulders, h, a, and flanges, j, y, asand for the purposes herein set forth, the said rim and disks beingunited together by means of compound band-packings, k Z, 7c Z, in themanner herein

